camera while the girl faces the camera and appears to be looking straight into his eyes.
This picture was captioned “Learn to say no”. Arguably this caption is talking to girls.
The picture of teenage girls jogging (16) is from category C ‘alternative lifestyle/
activities’ and captioned “Let us involve ourselves in co-curricular activities”.
Interestingly both groups at Kanabiri Girls School foreground children. The Teens Against AIDS is worried about orphans and three of their pictures are used in relation to orphans. For Reality, the younger group, out of the nine pictures used three contain children’s images. This, it can be argued may relate to their gendering as girls and the nurturing / mothering role socially anticipated of them.
Of all the groups, The Teens Against AIDS used the largest number of pictures from the ABC Straight Talk messages and the HIV transmission category, six pictures in all. Their newspaper comes out as reproducing the key HIV/AIDS Straight Talk messages most.
Their layout which is picture-based is, however, not similar to Straight Talk.
It was also noted that the older girls were more balanced in their choice of pictures and used pictures from all categories while the younger girls used no picture from the risky behaviour category, a sign that the younger girls could be ignoring risk or assuming sexual abstention. Greene et al. (1996) observed that adolescents’ risk-taking may simply reflect cognitive-social immaturity and recommend that health messages should build on the developmental aspects of adolescent information processing.
from the ABC Straight Talk messages, (category A), two from ‘alternative
lifestyle/activities’ (category C), one each from the risky behaviour and the HIV/AIDS effects categories respectively, but none at all from the HIV/AIDS transmission category.
They also wrote two advice pieces to their imaginary audience of teenagers.
The most prominently used picture in their newspaper was that of a girl and boy out at night (22) selected from the risky behaviour category (D). It was presented as larger than the others and was the first picture to be pasted on the page. It is captioned, “Why not? A boy and his girlfriend meeting outside a pub, the boy is apparently convincing the girl to have sex. Isn’t it worth waiting for?” The other picture used here in relation to risky behaviour is a picture of housemates from the M-Net reality television show, Gaetano and Abby (4). It is anchored thus: “What Gaetano and Abby did in the big brother house is not good for teenagers (having sex). Teenagers should abstain from sex until after marriage since AIDS is still present10.” The group follows this up with an advice piece:
Is it worth waiting?
Fellow teenagers, what if we didn’t have early sex and instead waited for a happy marriage, wouldn’t it be nice? You guys and girls should know something, in movies all seems to be fine and there always happy endings which is not reality but where we live there are terrible consequences, so let us not let what we see in the newspaper or even in books turn us away from the correct path.
The inclusion of the advice piece indicates that this group of teenagers are aware of situations that could lead to HIV/AIDS exposure and they advocate abstention as a remedy. The message is critical of media portrayals of love and sex as unrealistic, with potentially devastating rather than romantic consequences.
Teens Speak Out also included two pictures that relate to the major Straight Talk HIV/AIDS messages (category A). The illustration of the Protector condom promotion
10This picture had been introduced in relation to the major ABC messages of Straight Talk (category A) with the assumption that the teenagers wouldconsider the Gaetano and Abby relationship as between two adults who most probably would have protected sex.
(5) is captioned, “Life is about making decisions. You can’t abstain then use a condom”.
The church wedding picture (1) is captioned: “Here is a chance: Waiting for your chance to have a trustworthy partner like the above couple could be a better resolution.
Remember that premarital sex is dangerous to your life”. The second advice piece is consistent with the major ABC Straight Talk messages, which this group aptly reproduced.
AIDS kills beware!
By fellow teens
It has been already talked about, the scourge of AIDS. Even singers like Destiny’s Child encourage using condoms and most importantly abstinence. Having self control, self-respect and even being optimistic about your future could be found quite useful in avoiding death, suffering and even disappointment in life.
Teenagers we can avoid acquiring a preventable disease like AIDS.
From category C of alternative lifestyle/ activities two pictures were used, namely one of girls jogging (16) captioned “Sports can keep your mind busy and away from sex” and the other of teenage athlete star, Docus Inzikuru (15) with the caption, “She’s a winner:
In order to become a winner in life, you must love it and thus live it”. This boys group is the only group that used two pictures from this category, probably an indication of their enjoyment of sports. (When these boys joined the focus group they had their sports wear on and told the researcher they had just been playing football.)
The only picture from category E ‘HIV/AIDS effects’ used by the Teens Speak Out, is of an elderly woman with eleven young children besides two graves (33). The caption reads:
“Had they chosen to use condoms, they wouldn’t be in the dark, cold and lonely ditches”.
Interestingly, this contrasts with both groups’ from Kanabiri Girls School who used this picture as relating to orphans.
The Eye Opener newspaper, which was produced by the second group at Kanasatu Boys College, used ten pictures mostly with lengthy captions. Their masthead is neatly centred in the top middle part of their broad-sheet page. Their pictures are evenly spread on the page with little white space in between them. Their main theme, which they do not indicate on the page but clarify in the discussion, is ‘to educate the youth about AIDS’.
They use four pictures from both the ‘HIV/AIDS effects’ and the ABC Straight Talk messages categories (E and A), two from the risky behaviour category (D) and none from either the HIV transmission and alternative activities categories (B and C) respectively.
Their four central pictures are from the ‘HIV/AIDS effects’ category E, thereby privileging this category. The emaciated sick boy picture (27) is captioned “This is the results of AIDS. The child above could have probably got it at birth from the mother”.
The second picture is of the legendary musician, Bongole Lutaya besides his elderly mother (29) captioned: “AIDS is the leading killer disease, it has ruled over man simply because of ignorance. Despite the amount of money and wealth you have as long as you are ignorant of AIDS it will sweep you off”. Their third picture (30) is also Bongole addressing an audience captioned, “They have been there they have felt the pain. So learn and listen to whatever they say. It is very easy, try it out”. The fourth picture is the graveyard scene (33) captioned, “The people above are unhappy and are mourning after the death of many of their relatives. He/She could have died of AIDS”.
Then, from the ABC Straight Talk messages (category A) they included four pictures, two of them of condoms. The female condom picture (7) was captioned “However all this can be prevented through the following ways. For example the use of condoms as shown by the lady above that is having protected sex”. The male condom display picture (6) was captioned: “The man above shows us one of the ways to prevent AIDS. This is by use of condoms, as they say prevention is better than cure”. They also used two pictures to advocate the advantages of abstaining from sex until marriage. Marriage is presented here as desirable and something to look forward to. The picture of Natasha Museveni sharing a drink with her husband on their wedding day (1) is captioned: “NBM: ‘Not Before Marriage’. God made sex to be wonderful not painful through early sex and thus AIDS”.
The other picture was that of adult lovers out in a garden(3) and it was anchored: “A happy couple have a good afternoon at the beach. This is a result of waiting till marriage”.
From the ‘risky situation’ category D, The Eye Opener selected the image of a girl and boy out at night (22) captioned “When we start relationships as at a young age, we are not
emotionally mature and we are ignorant of AIDS. Watch out live and love your life”. The other picture selected from this category was of two teenagers sleeping outside at night, two beer bottles besides them (25) and it was captioned, “Engaging yourself in peer groups and taking excessive alcohol is very dangerous as this can lead one to loose his self control. You can have sex without your knowledge and without using protective means. This can lead to spread of AIDS which has resulted into sufferings and death of many people”.
It is noteworthy that neither of the boy’s only groups used any picture from the HIV transmission category B, which includes pictures of breast-feeding mothers, injections and a safe blood campaign. In comparison the older girls group from Kanabiri used three pictures in this category. The messages produced by The Eye Opener suggest this group of boys have placed emphasis on the effects and prevention of HIV/AIDS but they do not focus on HIV transmission and alternative activities that could keep one safe from
HIV/AIDS.